[FM11] Lancaster City - A good team in disguise - Attempt 2

History

The club was founded on 31 May 1905 at Temperance Hall in Lancaster, and were originally named Lancaster Athletic Football Club. They immediately joined Division Two of the Lancashire Combination, but resigned from the league at the end of the Lancashire Combination at the end of the 1909–10 season. The club dropped into the West Lancashire Football League, and changed their name to Lancaster Football Club. However, they failed to complete their fixtures, and shareholders decided to disband the club in March 1911. In May 1911 the club was reformed as Lancaster Town Football Club and were admitted back into the Division Two of the Lancashire Combination for the start of the 1911-12 season.

After World War I the Combination was reduced to a single division. The club finished as runners-up in 1919–20, and the following season the club applied to join the new Third Division North of the Football League, but were unsuccessful. However, they won the Combination for the first time in 1921–22. In 1928–29 the club reached the first round of the FA Cup for the first time, but lost 3–1 at home to Lincoln City. The following year they won the Combination for a second time and reached the FA Cup first round again, losing 4–1 at New Brighton. The first round was reached again in 1930–31, 1931–32 and 1933–34, but the club lost on each occasion. Back-to-back league titles were won in 1934–35 and 1935–36,[1] and in 1937 the club adopted its current name after the town was giving city status as part of King George VI's coronation celebrations.

In 1970 the club left the Combination to join the newly-established Northern Premier League. After finishing seventeenth in 1981–82 they dropped into Division One of the North West Counties League. Two years later they were relegated again after finishing second from bottom of the division. However, despite only finishing thirteenth in 1987–88, the club were accepted into the new Division One of the Northern Premier League.

In 1995–96 Lancaster won Division One and were promoted to the Premier Division. After finishing eighth in 2003–04 the club were placed in the newly-established Conference North. Financial problems led to the club folding at the end of the 2006–07 season, in which they suffered a 10-point deduction for going into administration, and finished bottom of the league with one point. During the summer, the club reformed, and were accepted into Division One of the Northern Premier League.

Club Information

Background

Year Founded - 1905

Status - Semi-Professional

Reputation - Obscure

Finances

Balance - £8,784

Loans - £0

Wage Budget - £1,900

Current Wages - £1,739

Transfer Budget - £0

Stadium

Name - Giant Axe

Capacity - 3153

Seats - 513

Condition - Good

Training Facilities

Senior - Basic

Youth - Basic

Current Squad

Not got a huge amount of players at the moment and there are not many that I would deem good enough for the team. The biggest problem with that current squad is probably that most of the poor players are on part time contracts and so are a bit tricky to get rid of without costing us money, although hopefully I might be able to get a bit of money for some of the deadwood.

Current Staff

The only positive I can give about the current backroom setup is that my assistant manager is OK. Everybody else is terrible and will be released as soon as possible.

Season Aims

1) Rebuild the squad with as many young players as possible.

2) Reach the playoffs at the end of the season.

3) Don't ruin the teams finances as I usually end up doing at every club I manage!

Initial Assessment

Club Information

Club - Lancaster City

Nation - England

League - Evo-Stik League First Division North

Club Status - Semi-Professional

Bank Balance - £9,342

Stadium Name - Giant Axe

Stadium Capacity - 3153 (513 seated)

Board Expectations - Win the division

Media Prediction - 2nd

Wage Budget - £1000/w (Currently spending £827p/w)

Transfer Budget - £0

Current Squad

Good enough to push for promotion but I still expect to replace most of the squad if possible.

Lancaster City - Evo-Stik League First Division North - 2010/2011

Pre-Season

Transfers

Transfers - Signed too many players for my budget, I can't afford this many guys at all but hopefully we can do well enough this season to make up for the huge loss we're gonna make on wages.

Results

Friendlies - Not exactly great, I let my assistant concentrate on the friendlies while I was busy trying to improve the squad for the coming season so given the poor results team morale is a bit low at the moment so overall, a pretty crappy pre-season.

Potential Stars

Spencer Harris - A good solid defender, much better than average for this level and hopefully he can do a good job of shoring up our defence and making it easier for the rest of the side.

Chris Kerr - A useful little utility player, will be required to fill in everywhere from defensive midfield up to the attacking wingers but he looks good enough to cope wherever he is needed.

Arriki - An odd one this. Technically he is pretty good for this level, he is quick which fits my system and he is a hard worker. Then on the other hand you have the fact that he is so weak you could probably blow him over and he couldn't really be less composed but hopefully he will still be able to bag himself a lot of goals this year.

Progress v.2?

Progress v.2?

Progress was halted because I've spent the last few days stuck in hospital after having surgery on my shoulder.

Got back last night and will be playing this game today.

Hope you get better

Hope you get better

Yeh, wasn't anything too major. Essentially I had a detatched tendon in my shoulder, caused by me crashing my motorbike just before the start of the first term of Uni. Took this bloody long to get the NHS to sort it out!

Hopefully, they reattached it to the shoulder, and not some other random body part.

Looking forward to the update. Glad to hear you are all better.

Lancaster City - Evo-Stik League First Division North - 2010/2011

January Update

Competitions

League Table - Well 3rd place isn't too bad, especially when you consider that we have 8 games in hand over the leader! We've been playing in so many cars that despite doing really well in the league this is the first time we've got above mid table. 3 weeks ago we were on 9 games while the leaders were on 20 games!

Northern League Challenge Cup - We really shouldn't have lost the game that we did, we were leading till the 85th minute when we imploded and gave away 2 penalties in the last few minutes BUT I'm actually pretty happy that we're out of the cup. There is virtually no prize money and all it would have done is add more games to our already very busy schedule.

Northern League President's Cup - Another tiny cup that I'm actually fairly glad to go out of, even if we did get knocked out in a very annoying fashion. Thanks to an injury and a red card just after I had made my 3 substitutions we were down to 9 men from 70 minutes in.

FA Cup - Well, the positives ended as soon as the qualifying rounds did. We were always destined to lose against the team who are running away with League 1 but I was hoping we would at least have a shot on target. In total we had 2 shots to their 27, both blazed well over the bar from about 30 yards out.

Lancashire Challenge Trophy - Not exactly too difficult so far and one competition that I don't mind staying in as all it will take to win it from here is 2 more fairly simple games spread out over the rest of the season. The one competition we should easily win, especially given that we've already managed to knock out a Blue Square Premier side, Southport.

FA Trophy - Going very well so far. We slipped up a couple of times in the early rounds in easy games but we've started to put in good performances now. While our next game is against a decent Blue Square Premier side, we've already beaten Southport in the Lancashire Challenge Trophy, and they are currently sitting a few places above Kettering, so hopefully we can go another round or two and earn a little bit more prize money.

Players

Squad - As you can see, most players have had to play some part due to our busy schedule and most players have done a decent enough job with a lot of players chipping in with goals & assists, although the standout star is obviously Arriki, with a goal a game, assists in double figures and even more man of the match awards.

Transfers - Well, I've already got a good squad and I've got absolutely no money left so I'm gonna be sticking with my current team for the remainder of the season.

Looking good so far mate! must be looking for some form after jan when the tournaments end and you can catch up on the top spot!

I've never seen anyone play someone 23 times from the bench and never start the guy like you have done with Neil Marshall!

Looking good so far mate! must be looking for some form after jan when the tournaments end and you can catch up on the top spot!

I've never seen anyone play someone 26 times from the bench and never start the guy like you have done with Neil Marshall!

I hadn't actually noticed that!

The only reason he never starts is because for him to get a start there have to be 4 of my 5 best defenders (as you can see from his nickname, he is 6th choice DC) unfit or injured. He's only had so many sub appearances because he is a natural DC and DL and a competent DR so with him on the bench I can bring him on anywhere in defence. He is actually way worse than all of my other defenders but I would rather play a crap player who is good in every defensive position than have a natural DC coming on as a left or right back.

I love having versatile guys like that on the sub bench. But, of course, the better thing to do is find one of your better second-choice DC's and train him to be a DR and/or DL as well.

I love having versatile guys like that on the sub bench. But, of course, the better thing to do is find one of your better second-choice DC's and train him to be a DR and/or DL as well.

When they are all on part time contracts with absolutely terrible coaches?

*EDIT* Also, at this level I tend to find that most of my squad changes each season till I'm up to the Blue Square Premier.

When they are all on part time contracts with absolutely terrible coaches?

*EDIT* Also, at this level I tend to find that most of my squad changes each season till I'm up to the Blue Square Premier.

i was going to suggest the same thing as DSYoung but you make a good point about the poor coaches and Part time contracts, but its always worth giving it a go, or bringing in a new defender that is a better quality to him that might challenge your main players?

good luck with the rest of your season ill keep on looking out every few days!

Lancaster City - Evo-Stik League First Division North - 2010/2011

Season Report

Competitions

League Table - Pretty impressive. We had actually won the league with about half a dozen games to go and I then let me assistant take charge of the remaining games, which he made a complete hash of, with 4 losses and 2 draws from the last 6 games.

Northern League Challenge Cup - Written about in the last update.

Northern League President's Cup - Written about in the last update.

FA Cup - Written about in the last update.

Lancashire Challenge Trophy - A great result here, in the final we were having to play a mid table Blue Square Premier club and we absolutely dominated them. We were 2-0 up until the 94th minute when they brought every single player up for a corner. Not a big trophy but one that we thoroughly deserved to win.

FA Trophy - I think we were a bit unlucky to go out to Kettering, I know they are a Blue Square Premier club but we matched them for about the first 80 minutes but right at the end of the game their fitness gave them the edge needed to put them through to the next round.

Squad

Squad - Lots of players getting lots of games and with most players doing their part well enough when they were needed. I was also very impressed by how many players chipping in with goals & assists. I would like to keep the core of the squad the same for next year but replace most of the rotation players to hopefully give us more strength in depth.

Key Players

Michael Rushton - Did a good job on the right wing, constantly terrorising defenders and doing a great job of putting good crosses into the area. Definitely performed better than his attributes would have suggested he would.

Christian Nanetti - Was usually the player that got on the end of Rushton's crosses. Showed that he is good with the ball, able to beat his man easily, and a good finisher when given the chance. Hopefully he can improve over the next couple of seasons and continue to put in good performances for the next few leagues.

Spencer Harris - A very solid defender, not making a great deal of tackles but was usually in the right place to cut out dangerous passes and he proved himself to be very strong in the air. Also showed he is a surprisingly good penalty taker, scoring 7 from 7 over the course of the season.

Chris Kerr - Despite his stats looking pretty poor he was a very important player this year. He was very good at providing the transition between defence and attack, doing a great job of getting the ball quickly up the field to the wingers.

Arriki - Definitely the standout performer in the team. Despite his lack of composure he rarely struggled to find the net. He did go through a couple of bad spells in the season where he didn't score for a handful of games but always seemed to find his feet and start scoring again.

On a side note, Neil Marshall finished the season with 0 starts & 43 substitute appearances.

Summary

A mixed season. Yes we did well in the league but I would have liked to have done a bit better in the competitions as we did go out of a couple against teams we should have easily beaten.

Well done

Well done on promotion and good luck next season

Congrats! More of the same next season, I believe.

Lancaster City - Evo-Stik League Premier Division - 2011/2012

Pre-Season

Transfers

Transfers - Pretty much one way traffic. I got rid of every single youth & reserve team player and a few of the fringe members of the senior squad. I also kept the number of signings right down, I had plenty of money to bring in some new players but I got a good batch of youngsters and was pretty happy with my squad from last season so decided to only make a few changes.

Results

Friendlies - A nice relaxing pre-season. I kept our games pretty simple just to give the new players a chance to gell and to keep team morale high.

Youth Intake

There were plenty of players who came into my youth team who will get game time this year but only one exceptional player.

Stuart Sobers - A brilliant prospect, can finish, is composed, can dribble and is bloody fast. He will be going straight into my first team and hopefully he won't let me down.

There were also a couple of youth players that I signed who I reckon could have a good future at the club.

Loris Karius - Technically a pretty solid keeper already. My staff all reckon he could be a good League 1 keeper in future and hopefully if he can put in some good work on the physical side of the game he could force his way into the first team and develop nicely.

Paul Downing - Another technically good, physically weak player. Like Karius, my scouts think he could reach League 1 level and he will get plenty of game time this year as my first backup for the center of defence so hopefully he can show some seroius improvements by the end of the season.

Potential Stars

Norman Martin - I'm undecided on whether this was a good move or not. He has some good goalkeeping stats but is also incredibly weak in some areas. Due to his age I will only be keeping him for a single year but hopefully he can give us one good season of service.

Thomas Pinault - Has taken a step down from Crawley to us and looks like a fantastic signing. He will be taking over the role that Chris Kerr had last season, sitting in the middle of the field spraying passes out to the players infront of him and I would put money on him getting a good number of assists.

Christian Nanetti - Had a great year last season, consistently outperforming his attributes, and I expect him to do the same this year. I would also like to see him making some improvements in training and hopefully he can establish himself as a valuable first teamer for a few years to come.

Stuart Sobers - Has big shoes to step into given Arikki's performances last season but I have faith in his ability to step up and lead the team from the front.

Well done on winning the league and good luck for the new season

Christain Nanetti looks good on my Barrow save and I am in L2 atm. Thomas Pinault is just a greedy has been if I was honest.

Well done on achieving promotion. Hope you have a good first season in the Evo-Stik League Premier.

Well done on achieving promotion. Hope you have a good first season in the Evo-Stik League Premier.

Well given that we won our first game 6-0 we should do ok!

Lancaster City - Evo-Stik League Premier Division - 2011/2012

January Update

Competitions

League Table - To say we're running away with the league would be an understatement. Miles ahead of everybody else in terms of points & goal difference. If we fail to break the 100 point barrier I will be very surprised and at this stage it looks like the league win is a certainty.

Northern League Chairman's Cup - A nice way to start the season with a pretty easy win against a mid table side., a solid performance despite there being quite a few players making their debut in this match.

Northern League Challenge Cup - Very easy so far, having played a team from the league below us in every round so far. Our next game is against a team from our league however we beat them 5-1 last time we met so it should be fairly straightforward.

Lancashire Challenge Trophy - Our next match should be pretty easy given that Leigh Genesis are in the league we were last season however if we win that then we will probably be playing Fleetwood Town in the final, who are currently sitting close to the top of the table in the Blue Square Premier, so that could be a very tricky match.

FA Cup - A very good effort and to only lose 1-0 to the team who are topping League 2 at the moment was a very good result. We wasted a couple of chances to take the lead early on and in the end were unlucky to lose as we pretty much matched them in every area of the pitch for almost the entire match.

FA Trophy - A competition I would like to go a few rounds further in. We've played very well so far, knocking out Blue Square North sides in the last 2 rounds and with out next match being against a blue square south side I think we've got a good chance of getting through to the 3rd round.

Players

Squad - Thanks to having a less busy schedule than last year I've been able to be more consistent with my team selections and so there have been less chances for the fringe players than last year. I have still been pleased with the way that the squad members have stepped up when given that chance, especially my own youth players. The only really dissappointing player so far has been Loris Karius who has conceded 6 goals in 3 starts, 5 of them because of his own mistakes. Hopefully if he puts in the effort in training he can improve his game and stop making silly mistakes but for now he is going to be very restricted in terms of what games he will be trusted in.

Transfers - As with last season I'm happy with my current squad and so will not be making any transfers until the start of next season.

Just thought i'd ask why has the FA Cup got 6 qualifying rounds

Just thought i'd ask why has the FA Cup got 6 qualifying rounds

Only just noticed that, I havn't got a clue!

Lancaster City - Evo-Stik League Premier Division - 2011/2012

Season Report

Competitions

League Table - We had a bit of a slump after christmas but we managed to pull ourself together for the last month and hit 100 points in our final match. Miles ahead of the rest of the league in terms of points & goal difference so I can't really complain about anything!

Northern League Chairman's Cup - Written about in the January update.

Northern League Challenge Cup - A pretty simple cup to win, only playing teams from our league. The final was a really nice way to end the season, it was actually a pretty even match but we took our chances really well.

Lancashire Challenge Trophy - On paper this was fairly simply up until the final but we made things difficult for ourselves with some bad performances however we upped our game when it mattered. In the final against Fleetwood Town, 4th in the BSP at the time, we were 2-0 down after 15 minutes but in the second half scored 4 great goals.

FA Cup - Written about in the January update.

FA Trophy - We went out in a match that we could have won without too much difficulty, but we did play very poorly and so I can't realy have any complaints as, at the end of the day, we didn't deserve to win.

Squad

Squad - As you can see, I was able to stick to a relatively small core of players for most of our games which definitely made things easier than last year. As you can see, there weren't any players who did really badly and almost everybody contributed when they needed to. Also, there are plenty of players who made most of their appearances in the final 20 minutes of games so never really got a chance to show what they could do. Overall though, very happy with the way everybody contributed when called upon.

Key Players

Ray Lally - I wasn't sure at the start of the season if he would be my first choice left wing back or not but he cemented his place in the team very early on. Showed good defensive ability while also being able to put a good cross into the area.

Chris Kerr - Had a change of position this year, being played as an attacking winger rather than a central midfielder but he didn't let me down. Very capable with the ball at his feet, great at putting dangerous crosses into the area and every now and then would conjure up a wonderful goal, out of his 11 goals, 8 of them were fantastic individual efforts.

Christian Nanetti - Like last year he outscored the other winger but had a few less assists. I'm not going to complain about this at all as his habit of darting into the area from out wide to get on the end of a cross from Chris Kerr won us a good few games this year. He hasn't really improved as much as I would have liked but he is now on a full-time contract, as are my 2 coaches so hopefully he can show some improvement next season.

Jason Bell - A fantastic season for the youngster. He never really got a chance to settle into a position as he was constantly being switched between DC, DM and MC depending on who was fit at the time, but it never seemed to put him off and he performed to a very high level all season. He has also made huge strides in training, showing good improvements in all the key defensive areas and hopefully he can continue to improve for the next few seasons and remain one of our key players for a good few years to come.

Stuart Sobers - Had big shoes to fill and did so in style. I'll let the numbers speak for themselves, 47 goals in 47 games at only 16 years of age. I can't say that his season was perfect, he did go through a couple of dry spells, most noticeably going over 600 minutes without scoring towards the end of the season, but he always bounced back well, as you can see with 10 goals in the final 5 games of the season. Didn't improve anywhere near as much as I would have liked though, but as with Nanetti, he is due to sign a full time contract in the not too distant future so hopefully that can kick start some real improvements in his game.

Roger Spires - Seems like an odd choice and when you look at his stats in more depth it seems even weirder, but he was very important this year. His 6 goals in the league came in the form of 2 second half hat-tricks. They happened one after the other right when we were looking in danger of falling behind Chester in the table shortly after Christmas, and they both came in games where we were 2-0 down at half time, which we ended up winning 3-2. That is why I've put him in here, because if we had lost those 2 games I'm not sure the team would have been able to recover well enough to have finished the season well.

Player(s) of the Season

Stuart Sobers & Jason Bell - Both players from my own youth team and both were outstanding at their respective ends of the pitch. Neither of them had an easy task, stepping into a fairly settled team and replacing solid performers from last season but they both did an excellent job and showed that they have the potential to drive the team up through the divisions.

Awards

Manager of the Season - Alex Shaw - 3rd place

Player of the Season - Stuart Sobers - 1st place

Top Goalscorer - Stuart Sobers - 30 goals

Lancaster City - Blue Square Bet North - 2012/2013

Pre-Season

Transfers

Transfers - As with last season, I'm pretty happy with the talent in the squad and didn't feel the need to bring in a huge amount of players. Most of the changes to the squad has been to improve the standard of the backup players and give us a greater strength in depth to hopefully avoid any slumps during busy periods of the season.

Results

Friendlies - Stuck to very easy games to ensure that the team went into the season with their morale high. As the team has remained largely unchanged from last year I didn't feel the need to play a lot of friendlies, just enough to get the key players back to match fitness.

Youth Intake

I got a few players in who will be given some playing time, nothing special but good enough to get the occasional game. There was only 1 player who really stood out and will be going straight into the first team.

Peter Henderson - Some solid defensive attributes although I will be using him as a full back and focussing his training on that area because of his high stamina, work rate and ability to cross the ball, combined with his defensive talent, I think that he could be trained up into a very good full back.

Potential Stars

Adam Bodzek - Too good for this level. He will hopefully do a great job infront of the defence, he looks like he should be able to be very effective at cutting out attacks and moving the ball back up towards the more attacking players. It is a position I've struggled with for the last 2 seasons but hopefully he can solve these problems.

Christian Nanetti - Has been a star for the past couple of seasons and despite not looking like anything special I think this could be a key season for him. He is finally on a full time contract, with 4 decent coaches at the club and hopefully he can make some major strides in his game this year.

Dean Gerken - Possibly the best ever capture by any club at this level. Was without a club for the whole of last season and I managed to lure him down to our level somehow. He will cost me a small fortune in bonuses and if we get promoted his wage will skyrocket but he should be good enough to make things very difficult for anybody to put many goals past us.

Jason Bell - Was very impressive last season and made some good improvements in training, so hopefully he can raise his game this season, continue to improve, and keep us very solid at the back.

Stuart Sobers - As with Bell he had a very good first season in football but unlike Bell he failed to make any real improvements in his game. He is on a full time contract this season though so hopefully he can keep banging in the goals but also show some improvements in his game as he has the potential to be much better than he is now and it would be a shame for him not to get nearer to it.

Federico Maraschi - Another fantastic capture. Was released by his previous club in the middle of last season and thanks to being given a generous wage budget I was able to lure him to the North for a year. He is a better player than Pinault, and given that Pinault did a very good job in his position last year I have high hopes for Maraschi.

Expectations

I have promised the board that we will be promoted and I genuinely think that we have a good enough squad for it. Hopefully our own youth can continue to play well and improve and I think that, provided we avoid too many injuries, we shouldn't have too many problems moving up yet again this year.

Lancaster City - Blue Square Bet North - 2012/2013

January Update

Competitions

League Table - As you can see from our results we have found this unbelievably easy so far. The fact that my team has remained largely unchanged to the past 18 months and with my tactics remaining pretty much the same since I took over at the club the team are extremely well settled and are really punching above their weight. The fact that I've got a few great youngsters at the club is really helping, there are 3 or 4 youngsters who have been really driving the team forwards and who I'm constantly turning down bids for.

Lancashire Challenge Trophy - We've only had to play teams from lower divisions so far and so we've had it very easy. Not only have we not conceded yet, we're yet to let any team have a good chance.

FA Cup - The obvious standout result was obviously the match against Ipswich. We were on the back foot for the whole match but we put in one of the best displays of counter attacking football I've ever seen, with Stuart Sobers having the game of his life to net a hat-trick against a team currently sitting in the top 6 of the Championship.

FA Trophy - Nothing very tricky so far. The match against Kidderminster could have been difficult but they had been on a dreadful run of form and their morale was rock bottom so in the end we outplayed them relatively easily.

Players

Squad - Thanks to a fairly relaxed schedule and a bit of luck avoiding injuries I've managed to be very consistant with my team selection this year and so I havn't had to worry about players not fitting in. As you can very clearly see if you look down to the bottom of the squad, Sobers is having an absolutely amazing season. Every time he has got the ball this season he has looked dangerous and he is simply far too good for the defenders in this division. Hopefully I can keep hold of him but I think that by the end of the season the chairman might sell him anyway as I've already turned down a couple of offers just shy of £1m.

Transfers - For once I have money to spend in January but I don't see the need to. I've got a very good squad, well settled, plenty of backup and I don't want to risk disrupting the team by bringing in anybody new at this stage.

Well done in the league and well done on that win over Ipswich

Er, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but surely your save is bugging.

Ipswich shouldn't have been in the FA Cup first round...

Er, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but surely your save is bugging.

Ipswich shouldn't have been in the FA Cup first round...

Yep, the FA Cup is a little bit messed up. There are 6 qualifying rounds instead of 4 and there are about 7 or 8 Championship sides appearing the the 1st round, with the rest of them starting in the 2nd round.

Tbh though, it is a relatively minor problem which has no real effect on the game, it simply means that the FA cup is a little bit different to real life, not a major problem at all.

Well it was going well until the 3rd season where you seemed to have gotten rid of a mate of mine, Rob Wilson, so hope your save crashes!!!

Good see your doing well. I always try to do a save with Lancaster but the fixture congestion always seem to catch up with me and annoys me!

Keep it up anyhoo!!

Lancaster City - Blue Square Bet North - 2012/2013

Season Report

Competitions

League Table - Apparently having a very settled team, a few tactics that have been tweaked to perfection over the last 3 seasons, and some great young players in my squad means that the league was pretty damn simple. We had the league wrapped up with about half a dozen games to go and apart from one 4-1 thumping we didn't have a single really bad game all season.

Lancashire Challenge Trophy - We didn't have a single difficult match, and every game was against teams from a lower division, so this was just a fun tournament. Stuart Sobers in particular had fun in this competition, with 15 goals from the 4 games he played in! He got a hat-trick in the first 3 games and 6 goals in the final.

FA Cup - Now, before anybody else points it out, I know the FA Cup isn't working exactly as it should, there shouldn't be 6 qualifying rounds and Ipswich shouldn't be in the 1st round, but on the whole it is working fine. After our win over Ipswich I thought we would easily be able to get past Mansfield but we were missing a few key players and just didn't look threatening at any point and so deserved to go out.

FA Trophy - A pretty enjoyable competition. Plenty of games against BSP sides and we proved ourselfs able to punch above our weight with some solid performances. Also, despite the result I do think that our 2-2 draw against Cambridge, we were 2-0 down at half time, being absolutely dominated, but we turned the game on its head, really took control and scored 2 great goals to draw the game.

Players

Squad - As you can see, I was able to stick to my first XI for most of the season, having got a bit lucky with injuries and not needing to rotate the team too much. Almost everybody who was required to play any number of games did their job well enough, nobody played so poorly that I felt like I needed to replace them and I think that the vast majority of the squad will still be around next season.

Key Players

Dean Gerken - A top quality keeper for this level, saved my ass on multiple occasions and was a fantastic last line of defence. He will probably be sold on over the summer though as I was receiving £50k offers for him towards the end of the season and I think that Loris Karius is probably good enough to step up now.

Federico Maraschi - Did exactly what I signed him to do, stepped straight into the position by Pinault last season but performed better. Was a consistent performer, sitting in the middle of the field spraying good passes up to the more attacking players but also chipped in with goals & assists from time to time.

Jason Bell - Had an easier year than last season, he was able to play about 80% of his games as a central defender, compared to about 50% last year, so he was able settle into the position more. He proved himself to be a very solid defender and he made some serious improvements to his game thanks to the full time contract and a tailor made training schedule. Has been attracting some serious interested from Championship & League 1 clubs but if there is any way I can keep hold of him I will.

Paul Downing - His first season in the first XI and he was outstanding. A good tackler and always seemed to be in the right place at the right time, a solid tackler and able to read the game pretty well to make plenty of vital interceptions. Also made some nice strides in his game and will hopefully continue to do so next year.

Seb Zielinsky - A storming first season with us. He doesn't look to be a great player but, like Nanetti has for the last 2 seasons, he has easily outperformed his attributes. Able to put a great cross into the area and kept on putting himself in dangerous positions, able to get onto the end of crosses from the opposite wing to slot them home. Was signed as a single season measure as the right wing was a weak area but he has done enough to convince me to keep him for next season.

Stuart Sobers - What can I say? He destroyed virtually every team we played against and well, 73 goals speaks for itself. He was especially impressive in the cups where he seemed to love playing the weaker teams and as you can tell by the fact he averaged over 2 goals per game in the cups he was unstoppable.

Player of the Season

Stuart Sobers - Well can you think of a reason why not?

Awards

Blue Square Bet North Player of the Season - Stuart Sobers

Blue Square Bet North Top Goalscorer - Stuart Sobers - 38 goals

Well it was going well until the 3rd season where you seemed to have gotten rid of a mate of mine, Rob Wilson, so hope your save crashes!!!

Good see your doing well. I always try to do a save with Lancaster but the fixture congestion always seem to catch up with me and annoys me!

Keep it up anyhoo!!

The fixture congestion gets better after the first couple of seasons as you're playing in less bloody stupid little cups.

Also, I did give him over 100 appearances to prove himself in the first 2 seasons but he didn't show me that he was good enough!

Need to close the tag on Maraschi. I'm an expert at doing that after the fact.

Good results. Be interesting to find out where your team really belong, in the pyramid.

Lancaster City - Blue Square Bet Premier - 2013/2014

Pre-Season

Transfers

Transfers - As I didn't want to upset the team I only brought in 3 players who will be in the 1st XI, most of my transfers were in order to give us more strength in depth, to hopefully allow us to continue to perform if we pick up some injuries. As far as transfers out go, I simply got rid of a couple of older players & backup player who didn't stand a chance of getting games this year, as well as releasing almost all of last years youth team and loaning out a couple of vaguely promising players.

Results

Friendlies - Can't really say much here, we played some crap teams and didn't do that well. The only testing match was against Grimbsy, currently in League 2, and we didn't realy play that well but hopefully we can pick things up once the proper season starts.

Youth Intake

Gavin Kelly - I'm unsure on this guy. He has relatively solid defensive attributes but will need to really improve his ability to read the game and pass the ball for me to consider him for regular starts, however I think that I will probably be offering him a professional contract in the hope that he can improve.

Martin Wood - Another player I'm not sure about. He isn't really strong anywhere but he has vaguely the right kind of attributes to eventually become a decent attacking winger. Will need some serious work on the physical side of his game and to focus on some key technical areas but I will definitely be giving him game time this year and hopefully this can help his development.

Potential Stars

Federico Maraschi - With so many youngsters in the team, Maraschi will be the most experienced player in my 1st XI. He did a great job last season and I hope he can drive the team forwards in the same fashion this year and as he is one of the only players who has played professional football before I think he won't have any problems.

Jason Bell - Has improved every year so far, has just been called up into the England Under 19s and I believe he still has plenty of room for improvement. Will be in the heart of my defence this year and will hopefully be able to hold the back line together well.

Loris Karius - Hasn't really impressed much yet but he improved a lot last season and so I'm going to be giving him the gloves to start the season. If he shows himself to be good enough then he will keep them but it will only take a handful of bad performances for him to start playing second string to Gerken again.

Peter Henderson - Technically he is pretty good, although I do want him to work hard on his dribbling and passing, physically he is good enough but he is very weak mentally. He is on a full time contract though on a schedule that should target the mental side of his game so hopefully we will see some major improvements in that part of his game.

Stuart Sobers - Obviously.

You are cheating my friend. And I'm sorry as I love your style (I read your last career with a club with a "B" in its name, I can't remember the full name, sorry) but it's obvious you're cheating. Either in-game editor or genie scout (probably the first one).

Bell is a Championship player, Karius could be a Premier league team reserve GK and Sobers could play for ANY team in the world as acceleration-pace combination is the most important strikers' quality.

You are cheating my friend. And I'm sorry as I love your style (I read your last career with a club with a "B" in its name, I can't remember the full name, sorry) but it's obvious you're cheating. Either in-game editor or genie scout (probably the first one).

Bell is a Championship player, Karius could be a Premier league team reserve GK and Sobers could play for ANY team in the world as acceleration-pace combination is the most important strikers' quality.

Think what you like, I've got incredibly lucky on this game, that is all I can say. I picked up Karius when he was out of contract and had been for a season, Bell & Sobers both came into my youth team which is pure luck.

The only thing that you could consider cheating is my training schedules, I don't know what is special about them but I get fantastic results using them and in every save I've done I've seen much better improvements using my training schedules than I have with any others.

You are cheating my friend. And I'm sorry as I love your style (I read your last career with a club with a "B" in its name, I can't remember the full name, sorry) but it's obvious you're cheating. Either in-game editor or genie scout (probably the first one).

Bell is a Championship player, Karius could be a Premier league team reserve GK and Sobers could play for ANY team in the world as acceleration-pace combination is the most important strikers' quality.

This is a forum for people to document their careers, there is no such thing as cheating in here, people are free to play how they like. If you don't like what someone is posting (for whatever reason) then simply don't read it. I'd rather not have people accusing people of cheating in here as that isn't what this forum is about.

great read so far. Keep it up as a Chester fan I hope they follow you up through the leagues

great read so far. Keep it up as a Chester fan I hope they follow you up through the leagues

Well after they followed me up in the first season they have finished 2nd in the Evo-Stik premier division for the last 2 years, losing in the playoff final both times.

They are currently sitting top of the table though with 45 points from their first 23 games.

Lancaster City - Blue Square Bet Premier - 2013/2014

January Update

Competitions

League Table - This season has been bloody weird so far. We have routinely beaten lower half sides around 3-0 but then looked like a much weaker side as soon as we come up against a decent side, with far too many 0-0 or 1-1 draws. We have had a bit of an injury crisis at times though so hopefully we can pick up our performances in the second half of the season.

Lancashire Challenge Trophy - Very simple so far, not even having to play anybody in our league, and it has been a good chance to give the youngsters some game time.

FA Trophy - Bath City, currently sat in the relegation zone in the Blue Square Bet South looked like an easy match but they put in one hell of a performance and not only did they beat us, they completely outplayed us. We could have done far better and this was a competition I wanted to go far in but the way we let ourselves be dominated we didn't deserve to go any further.

FA Cup - A nice win against League 2 Shrewsbury in the first round, and while I would have ilked to have gone further, under the circumstances, a 1-0 loss to a Championship side wasn't a bad result, especially seeing as this is the list of players that were missing for that match:

Doherty - injured

Eyjolfsson - injured

Vermijl - injured

Bodzek - injured

Zielinsky - injured

Nanetti - injured

Travis - injured

Ecclestone - injured

Bell - international duty

Henderson - international duty

Downing - international duty

This was about as bad as our injury crisis got, and as you can see, it had most of my 1st XI out of action.

Players

Squad - Thanks to our injuries I have had to use just about every player in our squad and almost everybody has done well enough when called upon. I am very happy with the amount of talent & the strength in depth of this squad for the most part, although I might look to pick up a couple of young attacking wingers as it seems to be the one area where we have struggled when a few injuries have been picked up.

Transfers - Despite wanting to sign a couple of new wingers I wasn't prepared to spend money on backup player for the remainder of the season and I wasn't able to bring in any half decent players on loan so I stuck with my existing squad.

Lancaster City - Blue Square Bet Premier - 2013/2014

Season Report

Competitions

League Table - Pretty damn close in the end. We hit a pretty bad run of form towards the end of the season and had dropped a fair way down the playoffs but we managed to pull things back together in the last few games and just pipped Gateshead to the post in the final game.

Lancashire Challenge Trophy - Fairly straightforward really. We didn't have to play any teams from higher divisions and didn't look like losing any games. Not much prize money but it was a good competition for some of my younger players to get some first team experience in.

FA Cup - Written about in the January update.

FA Trophy - Written about in the January update.

Players

Squad - I seemed to be constantly missing one or two key players and so there were plenty of opportunities for the squad players to get some game time. There were definitely players this year that showed themselves to be too weak for this level and so I will be going on a fairly major signing spree in the summer to make sure that we can cope with the football league.

Key Players

Eyjólfsson - On paper he doesn't seem to have done much but he was a very consistant, solid performer. Never exceptional but he never seemed to have a bad day at the office. Reads the game very well and kept on making important interceptions and was very capable of accurately distributing the ball out of defence.

Jason Bell - God only knows how he is still with us. The offers we've been receiving for him keep on increasing but luckily they havn't hit the point where my chairman accepts it yet. He is a very solid defender and keeps improving. Hopefully we can keep him for 1 more season before he moves on, and now that we are in the football leagues I can see his value sky rocketing which could mean that when he does move on we can at least make some decent money.

Seb Zielinsky - Was good last year but really upped his game this season. Over 15 goals & assists is a fantastic return for a winger. As with Christian Nanetti, he has outperformed his attributes and hopefully he can continue to do so next year but against better quality defenders he might start to struggle, but only time will tell.

Nathan Ecclestone - Was signed to be a backup player and so didn't get many starts, but he did a great job when he was thrown into the team when Sobers picked up a couple of injuries and routinely chipped in with important goals when they were needed.

Stuart Sobers - As per usual the defenders in this league were unable to cope with his pace and he took the chances he was presented with. I was a bit upset that he had a few bad games towards the end of the season as if he hadn't hit a slump in form he could have broken the 8.0 average rating barrier for the second year in a row. Currently has 159 goals in 131 games in all competitions for the club. I half expect him to move this summer because we've already been turning down £300k offers for him and I don't think it will take much more money for the chairman to sell him.

Awards

Blue Square Bet Premier Player of the Season - Stuart Sobers

Blue Square Bet Premier Top Goalscorer - Stuart Sobers - 35 goals

Yep, the FA Cup is a little bit messed up. There are 6 qualifying rounds instead of 4 and there are about 7 or 8 Championship sides appearing the the 1st round, with the rest of them starting in the 2nd round.

Tbh though, it is a relatively minor problem which has no real effect on the game, it simply means that the FA cup is a little bit different to real life, not a major problem at all.

I have been playing with the same English mod that you are using. the changes to the FA cup were made in order to expand the FA cup down to the 10th tier (which doesn't play in the cup in real life).

The lower divisions also seem a lot easier due to extremely low quality of players that most teams have down there. When I checked on the editor they were between 1-10 CA. Even with a 1 reputation team you will have little difficulty signing local players of 50+ CA, thus having players that are 20x better than the opposition on average.

Sad to see fleetwood get relegated on your game, I hope they don't end up like that IRL, they are doing so good for first time in conference nationals.

edit: I've been following this forum for a little over a month now, this is my first post on it though.

I have been playing with the same English mod that you are using. the changes to the FA cup were made in order to expand the FA cup down to the 10th tier (which doesn't play in the cup in real life).

The lower divisions also seem a lot easier due to extremely low quality of players that most teams have down there. When I checked on the editor they were between 1-10 CA. Even with a 1 reputation team you will have little difficulty signing local players of 50+ CA, thus having players that are 20x better than the opposition on average.

Sad to see fleetwood get relegated on your game, I hope they don't end up like that IRL, they are doing so good for first time in conference nationals.

edit: I've been following this forum for a little over a month now, this is my first post on it though.

Yep, it is very easy to advance quickly and from my previous games I have found that it doesn't even begin to get difficult till League 2. The only reason why the BSP was so close was because I had some major injury problems and kept on having to chop and change my team. If I was able to pick pretty much the same lineup each week I think I would have been about a dozen points clear at the top.

Which mod are you using for your game mackemforever?

It looks like the FA Cup is a bit messed up!! Good progress though, good luck in League 2!

Which mod are you using for your game mackemforever?

It looks like the FA Cup is a bit messed up!! Good progress though, good luck in League 2!

Read the post by Virzahen, 2 above, for the explanation of the FA Cup.

I can't remember which league system I'm using, if you look in the Editors Hideaway you will see a couple of level 11 english league systems in there, just use either, they are both good.

Read the post by Virzahen, 2 above, for the explanation of the FA Cup.

I can't remember which league system I'm using, if you look in the Editors Hideaway you will see a couple of level 11 english league systems in there, just use either, they are both good.

Im actually already using Uncle Rons English League system which goes down to level 8. That has a fully working FA Cup and is has virtually no glitches (except one where promoted teams coming into level 8 dont arrange friendlies, which kinda buggers the teams fitness up for the first half of the season) so im happy sticking to that.

My laptop is also not that great so going down to level 11 would mean alot of leagues which it cant really handle!

Lancaster City - npower League 2 - 2014/2015

Pre-Season

Transfers

Transfers - As you can see, I was pretty busy over the summer. I dumped every single player that wasn't good enough for this level and all of the youth players that wouldn't ever make it as a professional at any level. In terms of new signings I didn't bring in many 1st XI players because I didn't want to disrupt the team too much but I did bring in plenty of good squad players to ensure we've got enough strength in depth to survive our first season in the professional leagues.

Results

Friendlies - Plenty of games against better teams and while our results look fantastic you have to remember that against the good teams we were essentially playing their reserve & youth sides. Still, at least morale is high and the large number of games allowed me to introduce the new signings into the team before the start of the season.

Youth Intake

Kieran Brown - Doesn't look great at the moment but my coaches all think he could become a good Championship striker in the future so I will try to give him some games when I can and hopefully he can live up to my coaches expectations.

Ashley Rose - Looks very talented. He is very solid mentally, has the right kind of basic attributes and hopefully he can fulfill his early promise. He is going to be used as my second striker, so if Sobers needs a rest or is injured then Rose will get a chance.

Potential Stars

This year I know that the key part of our team will be the defence. With the pace of Sobers up front I know that we won't have a problem scoring, because if we need to we can always just play the long ball game and rely on Sobers to be able to outrun the defenders.

Loris Karius - Has done a good job so far but I know he will be called upon far more frequently than in previous years. Will definitely be the biggest test of his career so far and hopefully he will be up to the task.

Jason Bell - Is turning into a very solid defender and I have complete faith in his ability to step up to this level. The biggest worry I have is that I have made him the sides captain this season, although hopefully he can cope with the added pressure without too many problems.

Peter Henderson - Will be a bit of a utility defender for me this year. Despite looking like a very good central defender he will be mainly used on the flanks but will be expected to fill in if either of our first choice central defenders get injured. Hopefully he can show some improvements in areas like his dribbling and passing to make him a better full back, but for now he is good enough for this level.

Leroy Resodihardjo - The latest midfielder to take on the role of the central playmaker. Has the right kind of mental & technical attributes to do well and hopefully his physical shortcomings won't be too much of a problem.

Stuart Sobers - Well lets be honest, if he doesn't perform then we don't stand a chance.

Other News

Status Improvement - Over the summer we turned Professional.

International Management - I also took my first step in international football when I was appointed the manager of Indonesia, currently ranked 142nd in the world and with some seriously demanding FA expectations! Hopefully we can avoid getting beaten too badly in any of our friendlies. The problem is that out of the 400 or so Indonesian players I could find, there is only 1 that would make it into my side, and only 2 that would stand out in the Blue Square Premier.